Another major US hospital hacked, data on 1.4 million patients leaked
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A new ransomware player is already wreaking havoc. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Another major US hospital has suffered a cyberattack recently, and as a result, lost sensitive data on more than a million patients.
In an announcement published on its website, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso (HSCs), confirmed suffering a “temporary disruption to some computer systems and applications.”.
Subsequent investigation confirmed that the disruption was the result of a ransomware attack, in which “certain files and folders” were removed from the HSCs’ network. The attack allegedly happened on September 17, and was discovered more than a week later, on September 29.
In the notice, it did not say how many people were affected, or who the attackers were, but in a separate filing with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, it said the number was 1,465,000. HSCs concluded that crooks stole sensitive data such as people’s names, date of birth, address, Social Security number, driver’s license number, government-issued identification number, financial account information, health insurance information and medical information, including medical records numbers, billing/claims data and diagnosis and treatment information.
The threat actor behind this attack is called Interlock, and appears to be a relatively new ransomware operation, which targets high-profile organizations and demands hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom. The group recently added HSCs’ data to its leak website, where it showcased 2.1 million files, totaling 2.6 terabytes.